


No Medals Being Handed Out

by writingramblr



Category: Terminator Genisys (2015)
Genre: Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Post-Movie(s), Scars, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-08 00:51:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4284363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingramblr/pseuds/writingramblr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For some, scars are badges of honor. <br/>For Kyle, they are reminders of the horrors he survived.<br/>There were no medals handed out for fighting the machines, so he'll take what he can get.</p>
<p>Sarah asks him how he got them, and he's reluctant to speak of the ghost that haunts their future and their past, but he can deny her nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Medals Being Handed Out

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by this photo: http://queerfour.tumblr.com/post/122258421089/  
> I wanted to write some angsty fluff about it.  
> And I just can't seem to get enough of these two.  
> it loosely follows my other Kyle/Sarah story 'Learning to Fall' and also 'Roll of the Dice'  
> they're all in my own little headcanon UA.

It was a quiet night with no dreams for either of them.

Sarah had stayed with Kyle since the early hours of the morning, and now the sunlight was just beginning to stream into the room.

The makeshift curtains that she’d hung a couple weeks back, in their newest residence, for Pops made them keep moving every few months, just in case, weren’t the most attractive things to look at, but they made it seem a little homier.

Kyle slept on his stomach when she was at his side, with one arm usually thrown around her waist, to ensure he could still feel some part of her.

It was almost endearing, and she wondered if some part of him still saw her as he had when he’d been young and scared in that stairwell.

Some things hadn’t changed.

Even if his past had been completely shifted into the light, he’d still grown up fighting every day of his life.

It showed.

There were many scatterings of pink and white scars along his arms and upper back, and even down to his waist.

The further she pushed the sheet down, the more her throat closed up.

He looked so peaceful as he slept, and years younger.

She didn’t want to disturb him.

She traced a fingertip along his shoulder blade, and paused at the most obvious of the scars, a healed bullet wound.

His back shifted, and he inhaled deeply, eyes flickering open and shut, and then he sighed.

“That feels nice.”

Sarah tried to smile at him, pretending she hadn’t been caught,

“Yeah? Did you sleep well?”

A small shrug of the muscled shoulders beneath her hands gave her the answer to the question she needn’t have asked.

He turned over and moved his hold on her, pulling her close, into an embrace where she loomed over him slightly, her messy brown waves brushing over his face.

“You look worried.”

He stroked a hand over her cheek, so large it could have probably covered her entire face,

“Do I.”

It wasn’t a question.

He knew how to read her perfectly.

“What is it?”

Still blinking sleep from his eyes, and frowning sweetly in concern, Kyle Reese was her ultimate downfall.

She’d been kidding herself if she ever really thought she wouldn’t fall for him, for the good of humanity or not.

Sarah sighed, and then put her hands on his chest, pushing herself up slightly, and then she looked pointedly at his flesh surrounding his heart and stomach.

“What happened?”

A flash of understanding lit his green eyes, and they closed briefly, perhaps while he gathered strength to speak about distant and recent memories.

“It’s a long story Sarah.”

She flipped over to his side, perched up on her elbow, and blinked,

“I’ve got nowhere to be.”

*

Kyle knew the day would come when she’d ask.

He was just surprised it hadn’t been sooner.

She’d seen him naked so many times now; it was a matter of her being extremely tactful, and simply kind.

The scars he’d earned in many battles with the machines, and some he’d come close to losing, if it hadn’t been for…

For their son.

It still hurt too much to talk about him.

But Kyle could tell her the story leading up to each one.

“For a while there, I thought maybe it was fire burning me. But it was just a bullet. It was a clean wound, in and out. No bullet to have to hunt for inside my shoulder. But there was so much blood, I was afraid it was all over.”

He laughed, despite the serious nature of the story, and Sarah stroked his shoulder soothingly, tracing the scar with an incredible amount of gentle caution.

It didn’t hurt anymore of course, but he could almost swear he felt the ghost of the burning.

Every time after that when he’d been shot, or cut by shrapnel, it hadn’t been so bad.

He knew if he could survive one, he’d make through another.

And so it went.

Battle after battle, injury and scar after another.

He was going to see the end of the war with the machines if it took everything in him.

It nearly had.

He’d seen younger and more powerful soldiers cut down in front of him, but they didn’t have what he did.

A constant guardian and near angel of vengeance on his side.

For all the narrow misses and close calls he’d had, Kyle had always wondered where the scars on… _John_ ’s face had come from.

He’d had them as long as Kyle had known him.

He suddenly froze, and the words stopped.

Maybe Sarah had stopped listening a while back, for she looked as if she wasn’t quite focused on him.

Her hand tightened on his arm, and he closed his eyes, blocking out the growing light in the room, counting slowly to ten, to twenty, then higher.

As long as it took to calm down, and to stop thinking about what he couldn’t change.

‘Fate is not but what we make of it.’

Sarah had told him that one night, out on the shore of the lake in their last place of residence. There had been such a look of pain in her eyes, he wondered if she was recalling a past life.

In a way, according to her, they’d shared many a past life.

All of them too brief.

*

As much as it hurt Kyle to think about John, much less say his name, Sarah was in far more turmoil.

She was scared to death of even considering _not_ having John.

Eventually, she knew it would have to happen.

But in the new timeline, in the new series of events, fate or not, she didn’t know when the time would be right.

She sighed, and almost had a mad desire to laugh.

Of course.

The time would be right.

It would happen when she least expected it.

There would be a night when she got distracted, too focused on something, and both she and Kyle would be careless.

Trying to fight it wouldn’t do anything but bring it along faster.

Well…

She’d learned the hard way that denying herself of something she needed didn’t do any good.

A hand brushing her wayward bangs, which had started growing past her eyes, and needed a trim, distracted her from her depressing thoughts.

“Are you still with me?”

She smiled sadly,

“Where else would I be?”

She looked up at him, and brought her hand to press against his, bringing it around to her lips, and gracing his palm with a kiss.

“Sarah…you have to know it was all worth it to get here. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. I wouldn’t like it, sure, but I’d do it.”

“I’d never ask that of you.”

The stinging behind her eyes was confusing. She wasn’t upset about anything he was saying. It was beautiful.

The words weren’t empty and they weren’t an attempt to gain anything.

So why did she feel so lost?

Kyle seemed to sense her distress, and perhaps he could read it on her face.

He put his hand behind her head, fingers gently weaving into her hair, and pulled her close to kiss her.

She let her thoughts go, and let him take control of the kiss, opening her mouth to him, and allowing her breath to be stolen.

He was always good at distracting her, and she loved every second of it.

*


End file.
